


Hiraeth

by teshumai



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Near Death Experiences, tiggers-discussions of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:54:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5133403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teshumai/pseuds/teshumai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike had thought, when he’d claimed he was the place Jeff belonged, that he was challenging some spirit or dark creature who had caught Jeff somehow. Something with a heart, with wants and desires, something that could be reasoned with, bought, or defeated. The Ocean wasn’t alive, it didn’t reason or compromise, it just was, vast and terrifying and eternal and Mike had never felt so small and helpless</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank Heliyon for holding my hand while I wrote this, probably never would have written it without you. And Ionthesparrow for your amazing story notes which made this so much stronger. And asmallbluedot for fixing all the grammar, I know there was a lot of it including a few scenes that were entirely in the wrong tense, thank you so much for doing that. Also thank you for picking me and making pretty art for my story :)
> 
> SPOILERY EXPLANATIONS OF THOSE TIGGER WARNINGS IN THE END NOTES

Jeff knew he wasn’t technically allowed in the attic, Daddy said it was too dangerous for kids and Mommy agreed, but Jeff could never stay away. He liked the attic. It was a little dusty but there was a big window in the roof and Jeff liked to watch the raindrops hit it during the late summer storms and there was an old trunk tucked in the back that Jeff liked to lie on. There was something about that trunk that kept Jeff coming back. He couldn’t open it. It was always locked but Jeff kept trying. He wanted to know what was inside. He needed to know what was inside. 

The hinges were old and rusty and every day that Jeff went up to the attic they rattled a little more until the day when Jeff pushed on the lid and one of them broke, chipping off and falling away. He could get the lid up just high enough to pull out a fur coat. It was soft and had an odd freckled pattern, sort of like a leopard but not so bright, more of a light greyish brown with almost no contrast. He wrapped it around himself; surrounded by the soft fur Jeff could imagine he was at the beach, with the sun warming his skin and the ocean breeze soaking everything in a thin layer of salt water. Jeff never wanted to take it off. When he went back downstairs, still wrapt in his new coat, his mom dropped to her knees. 

“Jeff, sweetie, come here,” she beckoned reaching out for him. Jeff shuffled closer and when he was in arm's reach she gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer so he was right in front of her. She ran her hands up and down the arms of the coat. “Oh, Jeff, where did you find this?”

“I wasn’t in the attic,” Jeff lied.

“No, of course not,” she agreed, voice thick. “You’re a good boy aren’t you Jeff, mommy’s good boy.” She ran a hand across the collar to the hollow of Jeff’s neck. “I, I just remembered, I need to do something. Where’s your sister? Go get Christy, we’re going to go to grandma and grandpa’s, ok?” She swallowed and stepped back, eyes never leaving the coat.

When she dropped Jeff and his sister off at their grandparents’ she made Jeff leave the coat in the car. She kneeled down and hugged them tight for a long time, then she kissed their cheeks, brushed Christy’s hair back and said, “I’ll be home soon.”

Six months later the police found her car on a lookout point near the coast of Massachusetts.  
They said it was probably a suicide, they found her clothes neatly folded in the back seat. When people asked about what happened, Jeff dad always said, “She’s home now.” They didn’t talk about it otherwise.

\--

The words “just like his mother” followed Jeff through London. Neighbors said he was so tall, just like his mother. His aunt said, with a warm smile and pat on his head, that he was a great swimmer, just like his mother. His dad said with a sad sigh that he was always daydreaming, just like his mother.  
His grandmother said it angrily, in hushed whispers to his father late at night when she thought Jeff was asleep, “mark my words Jim, you let them take him out of this place and I promise you, you’re going to lose him, just like his mother.”  


And Jeff curled up in his blankets pulling the edges round and round until the blanket was wrapped tight around him like a second skin. He dreamt about his mother’s coat.

\--  
Once upon a time the men who filled the seats of Mike’s father’s bar would have been hunters and trappers, the kind of men that only came to town once or twice a month to sell their furs and buy supplies before disappearing again. Those days have long since slid into ancient memory. Now, the men who filled those seats spent their days playing tour guide for wealthy southern men who wanted to feel powerful by killing things with big teeth. They came into the bar and drank beer in the summer and whisky in the winter and talked.  


Mike grew up listening to them. In the summer they talked about clients with sneering derision for men who could barely hold a rifle. They laughed about the pampered city boys who did nothing during a hunt but pull the trigger, and then went back to the expensive lodges along the Lake and bragged about how they killed a bear. In the winter, when clients were far fewer, they told stories about the wild places. Nathan would pull Mike up on to the stool next to him and tell him the story of Old John who thought he was better than the woods. When the wind whistled of the coming storm Old John didn’t listen and set out into the wilderness to hunt deer. The snow didn’t stop for three days. It froze Old John’s heart and turned him into something less than man, something wild, something dark. Little boys these days had better not wander too far from the fires on snowy days or Old John will find them and eat their heart.  


Marc talked about the wolf men, half man, half beast. They roamed the wild woods as wolves until the deer grew too scarce, then they took the shape of men and wandered into towns. There they ate and drank and flirted with the most beautiful woman in whole place. Once they had charmed her, they drew her out beyond the lights of the town and devoured her.  


Guo described the snow women, who wandered the frozen woods with their hair as black as the night sky, their skin as white as the snow they walked on, and their blue, blue lips.  


They didn’t always agree. Guo insisted Old John, if he was ever real, was dead in a ravine somewhere, not haunting children. Marc said Guo only saw women in the woods because it had been too long since he got his dick wet, and Nathan scoffed at the idea of wolf men when regular men were far more likely to be the ones hurting their women. Mike listened to the stories, the hobbled together half remembered myths passed down to any child close enough to hear. Mike listened to the warning: don’t wander too far from the circle of civilization, not for long, not without care. And never take copper out of the Lake. That one everyone agreed on. When there was a bad summer storm, they shook their heads and sighed about tourists stealing copper and a few people would throw a bit of wire or few pennies off the dock and the storm would pass.  


The year Mike turned nine the winter didn’t want to end, it snowed throughout March and the Lake stayed frozen over. In the bar there was a quiet hum of fear: if the first crops didn’t get planted soon they wouldn’t be ready by the time winter came back, if the Lake didn’t defrost the early tourists wouldn’t be renting boats or hanging out along the beach spending money on frivolous tokens. If Winter didn’t end soon it would be a hard year. People started taking bits of copper out to the ice fishing holes or leaving them on the ice around the shore line until the docks were covered in pennies and bits of copper wire. Mike had left pennies on the ice, and a twisted bit of copper wire that looked like a sort of misshapen heart with a lumpy base and uneven halves. They sat on the ice with the rest of the offerings until Spring finally came, breaking the ice apart, and all the little copper bits sunk down into the dark mud. 

\--

Mike might have met Jeff at the OHL draft but he met a lot of people that day and if he did Jeff didn’t stand out. So the first time Mike remembered meeting Jeff was at the training camp for the U-17, when they were assigned to room together. The first night was awkward as most first nights were, “which bed”, and “do you sleep with the tv on”, and “when do you want to go to sleep” worked out in hesitating non-committal shrugs and a lot of “you know, whatevers”. Then Stewie knocked on their door with a handle of cheap vodka and told them they were doing a “team building exercise” in his room. 

Mike got separated from Jeff pretty early and spent most of the night arguing with Corey over whether Jet Li or Jackie Chan was the greatest martial artist to ever live. Sometime around midnight Mike got pulled into a group doing shots. Jeff was with them, slumped against the bed, eyes blurry and half lidded. Mike thought maybe he should cut Jeff off, but he wasn’t Jeff’s keeper. If Jeff wanted to get shitfaced on his first day of training camp, it wasn’t Mike’s problem. 

Someone filled Jeff’s glass, “Come on Cartsy, drink up.” 

The group laughed as Jeff blinked confusedly at the cup. The guy next to him helped him lift his arm and poured it into his mouth. Jeff swallowed most of the clear liquid but plenty still spilled over his lips to run down his chin and across his throat. Mike took his shot. A new round was poured and when they started to fill up Jeff’s glass again Mike made a face. 

“Come guys, I think he’s had enough.” 

Jeff blinked at Mike, and Mike was momentarily taken aback by how blue Jeff’s eyes were. It was like staring into the Lake back home. 

The guy pouring rolled his eyes, “Lighten up, Richie. Cartsy’s just having some fun, right Carts?”

Jeff turned his eyes towards the guy and swayed dangerously. “Just having fun, Richie” Jeff slurred.

“Fine,” Mike said and tossed back his shot before walking away. 

He didn’t see Jeff again until Stewie was kicking everyone out of the room and dumped a stumbling, slurring Jeff onto Mike’s shoulder. Jeff was stupidly tall, which Mike was aware of because everyone's stats were out there for the world to see but somehow hadn’t quite realized. Jeff had a way of disappearing, of making himself seem small, of taking up less space than he should. Mike on the other hand was still holding out for that last growth spurt to put him up to 6’0, so Jeff ended up draped over Mike’s back like a shawl, his shoulder pressed to the back of Mike’s neck and his head occasionally bumping against Mike’s. Once Mike had Jeff propped up against the wall next to their door, Jeff started talking.

“You smell good.”

“What?” Mike almost dropped the key.

“You smell good, like water and dirt. It’s almost right. It’s closer than anyone else,” Jeff went on. “The house used to smell like that, like water and dirt, but not like you, dustier and just,” Jeff paused, “just different.”

“You’re going to be so sorry during skate tomorrow,” Mike shook his head, pushing the door open and Jeff through it.

“You’ll take care of me.”

“I will?”

“Yeah, you’re my best friend,” Jeff slurred into his pillow.

“I don’t think you can call someone you met less than six hours ago your best friend,” Mike pointed out, pulling Jeff’s shoe off and tossing his legs onto the bed. 

“Oh,” Jeff sighed, turning his face into the pillow and pulling his legs away from Mike’s hands.

Jeff was just drunk and being unreasonably maudlin like drunk people got and Mike shouldn’t worry about how worn that one syllable sounded. Jeff looked so small again though, long limbs pulled in close and curling around himself. “Ok, Jeff, best friends.” Mike patted Jeff’s knee and turned out the lights.

\--

Jeff woke up in the dark with the sound of rain beating against the roof and the low sickening feeling of nausea. He rolled over hoping to put off the inevitable but moving at all turned out to be a mistake and he tumbled out of bed, staggering to reach the toilet before he threw-up all over the floor. Nothing ever tasted good on the way back up but there was something particularly unpleasant about orange juice and tequila, a sour citrusy mix of bile that turned Jeff’s stomach all on its own. He flushed the toilet, hoping getting rid of the smell would at least begin to settle his stomach. It didn’t really help and the minute he tried to drink some water everything protested and he was back where he started, throat burning as his body tried to purge more of his poor decisions. He could almost see his grandmother behind him, arms crossed and scowl in place.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand come down on the back of his neck. “Told you you’d be sorry tomorrow.” Mike’s voice was scratchy with sleep and his hand was heavy and clumsy as it rubbed across Jeff’s shoulders. “Did you drink some water?”

Jeff nodded.

“Didn’t go so well, eh?”

Jeff shook his head.

Mike made a soft humming noise and just sat there awkwardly petting Jeff’s shoulders. Jeff wasn’t entirely sure how much time passed, he wasn’t sure when he woke the first time but he woke up again to the sound of the alarm clock with his head resting on the toilet seat and Mike beside him asleep against the sink counter. He couldn’t be comfortable and Jeff wasn’t sure why Mike was still there and not back in his own bed. Then Mike opened his eyes and gave Jeff this small smile. “Feeling better?”

The thing was, Jeff wasn’t actually feeling much better, and two minutes ago he’d been sure he’d never stop feeling sick but he found himself smiling back and nodding and he almost believed it might be true. Mike’s hand rested on his shoulder for a second and it felt like an anchor steadying something in him. 

\--

They got ready in a hazy hungover silence, and Mike, slightly more functional, lead the way to the breakfast room. Everyone was eating slowly, heads hung low over their plates of eggs and sausage, some of them just poking at the food and looking a little green. Corey was nearly falling back asleep in his cereal. 

It was probably no secret what they had gotten up to last night and it felt like the coaches were skating them extra hard because of it. Mike hadn’t drunk that much and while sleeping on the bathroom floor wasn’t great, he was doing better than a lot of the other guys. Jeff, however, seemed to be getting better as practice went on, which was utterly unfair because if Mike had been anywhere near that drunk there was no way he could skate the way Jeff was skating. 

“How are you not dying,” Mike panted after the fourth round of 1-on-1 stop and start.

Jeff just grinned and shrugged. 

Off the ice Jeff started to wilt. By the time they got back to their room he looked as worn out and vaguely ill as the rest of them. They collapsed on their beds and Mike barely managed to turn the TV on before his energy ran out. They lay in bed as the TV cycled through an advertisement for the hotel they were staying in over and over. On the fourth cycle Jeff lifted his head from the mattress. 

“We should go to the pool.”

If Mike had the energy to form words he would have asked how Jeff could think about swimming right now. All he managed was a grunt.

“It’ll be fun. They have a hot tub - we can just sit in it, it’ll be good for us.”

Hot tub sounded nice. Moving still sounded horrible though. Jeff just looked at him with those big pleading eyes and Mike groaned but held up his arm. Jeff grinned and scrambled over to pull Mike up. Mike shambled along behind him towards the outdoor pool, using the wall to keep him upright.

It was late enough that the lights around the deck were on but the sky wasn’t really dark yet. The effect had the pool lit up with an unearthly green glow. Light rippled over Jeff’s pale chest as he slid into the hot water. He dropped down under the surface and just sat there for what felt like forever, longer than Mike could hold his breath for. He surfaced eventually, slowly rising up out of the bubbles and the water slid down his pinkened skinned. Mike sat on the side of the hot tub and tried not to stare to obviously. 

\--  
Jeff only had a short month home in London before the school year and hockey started. His grandmother launched a campaign to convince him to stay. She reminded him constantly that the chances of making a career out of a silly sport were infinitesimally small, that Jeff had never been so far from home, that there was plenty of hockey in London and if he took the Junior A route college would still be available to him. She wasn’t wrong. Jeff knew that but he wanted to go. He’d always wanted to go, he’d just never had a destination before.

Now he did. Now, he had a clear way out of the claustrophobic suburb where everyone knew him. He thought he could be different in Sault. He had this silly idea that maybe once he got there things would start to be different, like they had been at camp. He would be able to make friends, or at least one, and they wouldn’t mind if he was a little weird because this was the route to professional hockey and there were a lot of kind of weird people on that path. There was no Mike in Sault though.

Jeff was still the weirdest one, the one who was constantly a step behind in the conversation until he lost track of it entirely and ended up staring out at the river. There wasn’t a river like that back home. It was huge, wide enough for large cargo ships to pass abreast and the buildings on the other side looked like miniatures from a snowglobe. He was constantly fascinated by it. He walked for miles down the Boardwalk and past it out to the island where it was shallow enough to walk out. The little ripples bobbed over his ankles like they wanted him to follow them out into the deeper water. He did sometimes, waded out into the river and tried to breathe it in. It reminded him a little bit of Mike, of the wet muddy smell he carried with him, and of a far more distant memory of lying on a trunk watching rain fall on a skylight. 

He billeted with a family that lived in a pretty white house that overlooked the river. His room faced it and he could lose hours staring out the window. The breeze blew in at night and left droplets of sweet water on Jeff’s lip. He started sleepwalking, waking up ankle deep and miles from his bedroom. The first time it happened Jeff was completely lost when he woke up. Sault Ste. Marie was still a strange city and it was 2 in the morning. He wandered the empty residential streets until he found a gas station, lit up like a beacon among the dark houses. The guy behind the counter let Jeff use his phone and gave him a cup of coffee while he waited to be picked up. 

The second time it happened they call his dad. His grandmother insisted he come home. Told him over and over that it was not safe. She might have been right and Jeff almost gave in. He considered quietly sliding back to the familiar black asphalt of his home. But in the end he just didn’t want to. He didn’t particularly love Sault, but going backwards didn’t seem like the right way to move either. It happened a few more time and his billet parents wanted him to go see a specialist but Jeff resisted. He tried not to worry - it was just the new environment, he’d never been so far from home. It was nothing.

The river had a steep incline, going from ankles to knees to waist within a matter a few feet and the center of it had been dredged out multiple times to make room for the draft of the cargo ships that lumbered along. Jeff didn’t really consider what that might mean until the night he stepped off the edge into the channel. He woke up as the water closed over his head. He should panic, he should panic, he should have been flailing and clawing towards the surface, but he didn’t. He just floated in blackness. The currents pulled him gently along and he couldn’t tell if he was sinking or floating or which way was up. It was like being wrapt in a soft blanket and rocked back and forth, a faintly remembered sensation. He thought his mom used to do that when he was a baby. It was so nice, so comforting and calming he almost forgot why he shouldn’t just close his eyes again until his chest seized, the tell-tale kick pulling him out of the hazy dreamlike state he’d been in. Jeff started to panic, kicking wildly towards the only spot of light, in front of him, the small diminished glow of the giant harvest moon. His chest spasmed closer and closer each time, a count down to his last breath, until he broke the surface gasping in big breaths of air as he floated on top of the water for a minute. When he got back home he agreed to go to the doctor.

The doctor prescribed sleeping pills which kept Jeff in his bed through the night but made dragging himself out of bed in the morning even harder and the first few hours of the day were like swimming through a fog. He thought he was probably not supposed to like it, but if he couldn’t trust himself to actually slide under the water anymore this fuzzy floaty feeling was something at least.

\--

Mike hadn’t thought too much about Jeff over the fall. They played each other a few times but hadn’t really spoken. Mike wasn’t entirely sure what to expect on their first game against each other and when Jeff hadn’t done more than smile at him across the face-off dot Mike figured the little bubble of Jeff’s sudden best friend was a drunk camp thing. He shouldn’t feel disappointed by that. So he might have been a little bit relieved to be rooming with Corey when they all ended up back at the tournament together that winter. Corey was very particular about everything, but otherwise he wasn’t too bad. He didn’t snore or sleep with the windows open or anything like that, so Mike managed. 

He sat with some guys from Kitchner during team dinners and watched bad kung-fu movies with Corey and studiously didn’t bother Jeff. They weren’t friends,Mike kept reminding himself, they barely knew each other. Jeff’s roommate, Brandon, stopped by 3 minutes before curfew the second day. “Is Jeff in here?”

“No, why?” Mike asks.

“I don’t know, thought you guys were like friends?”

Mike swallowed “Not really.”

“Fine, well if you see him tell him to get back to the room. I’m not covering for him again.”

On the third day Brandon came by again.

“Did he do this all the time when you roomed with him?”

“No, he was totally normal with me,” Mike shrugged and tried not to sound like he was accusing Brandon of anything. 

Brandon gave him a weird look, “Yeah, sure, why don’t you room with him the rest of the tournament then.” 

“Ok.” Mike said, probably too quickly.

Brandon blinked, “really? I mean yeah, cool. Good luck finding him before room check, I’m gonna get my stuff.” 

It was already getting dark, and the red streaks of the low hanging sunbeams were turning the glass windows around the hockey rink orange when Mike finally found him. Jeff was laying in the rink, in a sweater and socks, his bare fingers tracing patterns on the ice. 

“Aren’t you cold.”

“No,” Jeff answered, not moving from his spot.

“What are you doing here anyways?” Mike asked searching the ground for Jeff’s shoes.

“I like it here. It feels nice, like I could belong here forever.”

“Well, keep playing like you do and we might win this thing,” Mike bent down to grab the flip flops Jeff had abandoned by the wall and tossed them onto the ice. “Now come on, let’s go back to the room.”

“Brendan thinks I’m weird.”

“You are weird,” Mike replied “but you’re rooming with me and I’m cold, so hurry up.”

Jeff lifted his head at that leaning back on his elbows, “You switched with him.”

“Of course I did, we’re best friends, remember?” Mike said, hoping Jeff actually did remember that conversation. 

Jeff smiled up at Mike, like Mike had just uttered the magic words he’d been waiting his whole life for. 

“Yeah,” Jeff said standing up and sliding to the wall in his socks. He nearly fell hopping out and Mike grabbed his hand to steady him. Even through his gloves he could feel how cold Jeff’s hands were. 

“Jesus Christ, you are freezing, you fucking moron,” Mike muttered pulling off his gloves and grabbing Jeff’s hand. He pulled the gloves over Jeff’s fingers, acutely aware of the sound of Jeff breathing and the hum of the air conditioning. “You belong with me, by the way,” he didn’t look up, concentrated everything on getting the gloves onto Jeff’s hands, “wherever I am, that’s where you belong.” 

Mike isn’t sure what prompted him to say that, something about the lost way Jeff had said he belonged on the ice, or the way he’d smiled when Mike called him his best friend. It felt important like Jeff needed to have a place or Mike might lose him. It was an odd, uneasy feeling that sank into Mike’s bones as the words left his mouth. Mike grew up with the stories of what was out there in the dark. He knew enough about the wet and wild to know something was up. Jeff wasn’t bothered by the cold and he was always half way somewhere else, like he had one foot in their world and the other... who knows. Something had a hold of him, and Mike unwittingly just challenged it.

When Mike finally looked up Jeff was staring at him and under the cool fluorescent lights his eyes were the color of storm clouds. 

“Promise?” 

“Yeah, cross my heart.”

\--

They came in 3rd, taking home the bronze and Stewie again hosted the celebration/ commiseration party. It was pretty much the same as the one he had for the first training camp over the summer except this time Jeff followed Mike around like a shadow. They both ended up silly drunk, giggly and loose and leaning heavier on each other as the night went on. They stumbled back to their room and Mike dug through Jeff’s pockets for the room key. Jeff leaned against the door, hips lifted for Mike’s hand. He spent a lot of time feeling around Jeff’s thigh and he wasn’t a hundred percent sure if the alcohol had made his hands stupid or brave. Jeff didn’t comment on it, just stared at Mike with wide blue eyes, breaths shallow. Mike leaned closer to slide the card into the door, eyes locked on Jeff’s. The key card thudded against the door handle. Mike tried again, with no greater luck. Cursing he broke eye contact to look down at the door and carefully tried to slide the key into the slot, which was not obliging. Above him Jeff started giggling.

Once he finally got the door open he pushed Jeff through it. Jeff was still laughing, doubled over as he fell on Mike’s bed. Mike fell on top of him and bracketed Jeff with his arms. Jeff’s laugh died off and they ended up staring at each other. Mike leaned in slow enough that Jeff could move, push him off or turn away if he wanted. They were barely centimeters apart when Jeff opened his mouth.

“My mom’s dead.” Mike could feel Jeff’s breath on his lips with each word, Mike sat up.

“What?”

Jeff wasn’t looking at Mike anymore, eyes turned towards the wall. “People get weird about not knowing that, like I should have told them before, but I never know when I’m supposed to tell them and I thought you were going to…I mean it seemed like you might, you know, and I thought you should probably know, you know...before.”

“Oh, ok.” Mike said, not really knowing how to respond to that. “Did you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Jeff’s answer was immediate.

“Ok,” Mike said again. He still wanted to kiss Jeff, but he thought that feeling was probably not going away anytime soon, and the mood had faded a bit. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I guess I probably should have.”

“No, Jeff, you don’t--” Mike frowned, trying to figure out the right way to say what he wanted to. “You don’t need to tell anyone about your mom if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not like that,” Jeff shrugged. “I don’t care if people know. I just, I never know when I’m supposed to tell them. It doesn’t exactly slide easily into conversations.”

Mike almost laughed at that, and felt like a terrible person for it but, “Yeah, I guess it’s a bit difficult to casually drop that bomb.”

Jeff smiled a little. “I never really had to when I was little cause everyone knew, but when I went to Sault, suddenly everyone’s asking about my mom, and I had keep telling everyone, ‘oh uh, she’s dead.’ It was the worst.”

“Can I ask how it happened?” Mike hesitated on the question but Jeff seemed like he might want to talk about it and Mike suddenly wanted to know everything about Jeff, all the little details of his childhood that created the Jeff laying on the bed next to him. There was a bit of him that hoped it would be this easy to find out what was haunting Jeff.

“She killed herself, I mean, we think she killed herself. It could have been an accident, she might not have meant to die.”

“Do you think so?”

“She said she’d be back soon.”

“Jeff?”

“The day she left to--to do it, she said ‘I’ll be back soon’”

Mike didn’t have anything to say to that, didn’t think there were any words in the whole universe that would be the right thing to say. So he didn’t say anything, just leaned down and gathered Jeff in his arms. 

“I’m not sad,” Jeff said, and oddly enough it sounded honest. “I was 3 when she died, I don’t really remember having a mother, so I can’t really miss her.”

“But you do anyways?”

“People think I’m weird” Jeff stated “and I don’t know the right things to say or how to be normal. If she hadn’t left, if she hadn’t made our family weird, maybe I wouldn’t be like this. Maybe I could be like everyone else.”

“I like the way you are,” Mike said.

“Really?” Jeff’s asked with a sarcastic smirk.

“Cross my heart,” Mike answered, absolutely serious.

“Oh,” Jeff said and bit his lip while his cheeks flushed.

“Want to watch TV?” Mike asked putting space between them.

“Wh-uh, sure?” Jeff answered, looking at Mike confused.

“Cool,” Mike turned on the TV without really paying attention to what channel it landed on. Jeff probably thought he was gonna kiss him, and it was not that Mike didn’t want to, but he didn’t want their first kiss to be part of the story of how Mike found out about Jeff’s mom. It was going to be its own story and it wasn’t going to involve sad things.

\--

Despite having travelled more in the past year then he had his whole life previous Jeff had still never been outside of Ontario. So a tournament in Yaroslavl, Russia seemed impossibly far away and he wasn’t sure if he could go that far, wasn’t sure he wanted to without Mike. Everything was just easier with Mike. Jeff didn’t feel so out of step with him and with Mike as an intermediary other people weren’t so difficult either. Mostly though Jeff wanted to get back in the hotel bed with Mike, warm and fuzzy drunk and wrapt safe in blankets that smelled like Mike, like wet earth. Mike would not be in Yaroslavl, but he wouldn’t be in London either so there was no reason to stay. 

Yaroslavl itself was cold and wet, sort of like Sault but more hurried. In Sault the river had really just been a thinning of the lakes, a tiny little way station between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, though Jeff knew eventually the water would wander its way down the St. Lawrence and out to the Atlantic, a geography lesson he had never had trouble remembering. In the center of Old Yaroslavl the Volga and Kotorosl rivers came together and flooded south. Jeff didn’t know where they were going and he thought it would be wrong to follow them but he still sort of wanted to. Jeff’s shoulders itched, deep below the skin where he couldn’t quite work out no matter how he shifted or stretched. He went back to spending all his free time at the rink. When everyone was gone he snuck back and laid down on cold damp ice and let the feeling sink into his bones until the need to follow the river to its end abated. 

Seabs showed up on the second day. He’d seemed nice enough, had bumped Jeff on the shoulder and made some comment about hating to be away from the shore as though Jeff knew what he was talking about. He didn’t ask questions, just kicked off his shoes and laid down on the ice next to Jeff. Jeff didn’t know how long they lay there. He always had trouble keeping track of time on the ice. 

“It’s never quite enough.” Seabs sighed, like he knew, like he felt that itching pulling too.

“No,” Jeff agreed.

Seabs sat up and held out a hand to pull Jeff with him, “Come on, it’s almost lights out. We don’t want to get caught breaking curfew on the second day.”

Jeff nodded, let himself be pulled away from the rink. Seabs slung an arm over his shoulder and even though they were both half frozen from the ice it still felt warm. 

\--

Seabs fished him out of the river the night before the last qualifier. Jeff woke up soaked to his waist in icy black water, his leg practically numb and Seabs a dark faceless figure in front of him. 

“You got the call bad, eh?”

Jeff just blinked, not sure he wasn’t still sleeping. 

“Come on, let’s get back and warm up, the cold might not bother us but this is a bit much,” Seabs said, gently pulling Jeff back towards the shore. Jeff followed reluctantly. He didn’t want to leave, he wanted to follow the current down to wherever it lead. That desire was enough to start a curl of fear in him. 

Getzy didn’t ask questions when Seabs came back to their room with a half soaked Jeff under his arm. He just rubbed his eyes and held the door open before flopping back down on his bed and starting to snore almost right away. Seabs pulled off his wet pants and gestured for Jeff to do the same and then pulled Jeff into the bed with him. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you stay inside the rest of the night.” 

Jeff nodded and the question of what was happening to him was on the tip of tongue, but he couldn’t get it out, afraid of what the answer might be.

He switched rooms with Getzy. It wasn’t official but as long as everyone showed up for breakfast in the morning no one really cared.

Jeff usually woke up in his bed, Seabs sleeping across the room. There were a few nights he woke up to Seabs’ hands on his arms in the middle of the hallway, but it wasn’t too often, not enough for him to pull out his sleeping pills that had sat unused in the bottom of his bag since the night he almost kissed Mike. He should ask about Seabs. He knew he should, Seabs seemed to think he knew Jeff and seemed to understand Jeff like no one but his sister ever had. He didn’t though, let Seabs talk to him like they shared some secret and never asked what that secret was supposed to be. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want the sneaking suspicion that this was something more than just being weird to be true. If he didn’t talk about it, if he didn’t acknowledge how much he wanted the river to take him, it wouldn’t be real. Jeff went home with no more answers then he’d come with.

\--

Jeff’s entered the draft along with a thousand other eighteen year olds, though unlike most of them he had a good shot at being selected. Mike did too and that would have been enough to get Jeff to the draft even if he had no chance. 

Jeff was selected 11th overall by the Philadelphia Flyers. His father’s smile was tight and his grandmother cried. Christy curled their fingers together when he sat next to her and leaned a head on his shoulder, “Philadelphia sounds nice. I wonder if they have a nice beach.”

Jeff shrugged his open shoulder, “I think so, we’ll go see it together if I get signed.”

Twenty three slots later the Flyers pick Mike, and Jeff hadn’t even thought to hope for that. 

\--

He didn’t get signed. He went back to Sault, back to sleeping pills and long walks along the river until he couldn’t walk any farther. He didn’t see Seabs at all, but he saw Mike - not often, Kitchener and Sault St. Marie were not close and only played each other twice a month every other month, but it was so good when he did. All the crap just melted off and Jeff felt settled for long minutes while Mike talked about his dog back home and the lake and how much he hated that there weren’t any lakes or rivers near Kitchener. And Jeff would listen pressed close to Mike’s warmth. There were times Mike would trail off eyes lingering on Jeff’s face and Jeff kept thinking, maybe this time, maybe this was the day Mike followed through on the night Jeff ruined a year and a half ago in their hotel room. He never did though and Jeff shouldn’t have been surprised. He pretty effectively fucked that up and even though he was pretty sure Mike still wanted him, he clearly didn’t think it was worth it to actually do anything. Jeff couldn’t blame him. Not when everyday he was a little more sure that he was going to end up an abandoned car on a look-out point. There was something wrong with him, something pulling him away from the safety of the shore whenever he let his guard down, something that probably killed his mom too. If he was a better person he wouldn’t hang around Mike, he’d call Seabs and ask him what he knew about Jeff, he’d figure out what he was and how not to be it anymore. He’d do something. Instead he hid from the feelings in the rhythm of Mike’s voice over the phone. 

\--

Helsinki stretched into the Baltic Sea, long islands reaching out to the sea that bubbled up to the embrace of the natural harbors the city was built around. The smell of it nearly knocked Jeff over when he stepped off the plane. Seabs threw an arm over Jeff’s shoulder and took a deep breath. 

“Don’t you love that smell?”

“Yeah,” Jeff found himself agreeing He couldn’t seem to stop taking deep breaths like he’d been starving for the taste of sea salt in the air. 

“Been a long time, eh?” Seabs laughed when he noticed.

“I guess so.”  
\--

Seabs offered to room with him again but for the first time Jeff wasn’t feeling pulled anywhere. He didn’t want to spend every second on the ice and he didn’t need to follow any rivers to some unknown destination. He just wanted to sit outside and breathe. Besides, they decided to put him and Mike together and it might be stupid but Jeff would rather end up waist deep in a river every night and room with Mike then be safe. 

Seabs shrugged but looked a little concerned. “Ok, just be careful.”

Jeff should really have told him he had no idea what Seabs was talking about. He nodded instead and stepped off the elevator. 

\--

They didn’t have much time to themselves afterwards with practices and games and team meetings. It wasn’t until the preliminary rounds were over that they had a moment to breathe.

They got tipsy, everyone on the team was old enough to go to the bars except Sid, who got so many shots snuck into his plain soda he ended up being carried home. Jeff wasn’t particularly drunk, a tiny sliver of fear of what he’d do, where he’d end up if he got too drunk to stop himself holding him back. Mike didn’t seem particularly trashed either. They were just loose enough to lean into each other a little too close. Mike’s hand slid down Jeff’s back and curled around his waist during the walk back to the hotel along the waterfront. When the rest of group had wandered ahead enough Mike stopped walking and pressed Jeff against the railing separating the sidewalk from the rocks and waves below. Mike had to stand on his toes to reach, a hand braced against Jeff’s chest to keep his balance while he pressed his lips against Jeff’s, close mouthed until Jeff threaded a hand in Mike’s hairs and pressed his tongue to the seam of Mike’s lips, tasting the sea spray on his skin. In the moment it was easy to mistake the way his heart contracted and his stomach fluttered for love.

They pulled apart slowly. Mike stepped back and the cool air filled in the warm space he’d occupied. He was smiling and Jeff was smiling stupidly back and Mike slid his fingers between Jeff’s and gently tugged him away from the rail. He didn’t drop Jeff’s hand as they walked behind the rest of the group.

\--

Mike pulled Jeff into their room and Jeff tumbled down onto the bed. He sunk into the  
soft mattress as Mike crawled over him, warm hands smoothing up his arms and wrapping around his shoulders. His mouth trailed up Jeff’s neck and covered his lips, warm and soft before pulling away again. 

“Hey,” he whispered, and Jeff could feel the brush of air slide over his cheek. 

“Hey,” he whispered back.

Mike bent down slow, one hand brushing through Jeff’s hair to lay resting against his head when their lips met again. It was gentle and slow, like the kiss on the rail had been, like Mike always was with Jeff. Jeff was the one to pull him down, to draw him in and deepen the kiss until they were both biting and gasping into the other’s mouth, breathing in the other’s air. Mike started to pull back, breathing hard and Jeff followed him up, kissing him over and over until he was dizzy with it, until he couldn’t breathe. Mike followed, wrapt himself around Jeff and rocked against him. Jeff’s heart was hammering, the blood rushing in his head sounded like a roaring and Mike’s hand was on his hip, pushing him down. Jeff ignored the kicking in his chest, and closed his eyes against the moon peeking through the curtains until everything around him was Mike, every touch, every taste. Jeff breathed him in with every gasp against the salty skin of his neck. Mike covered him, pressed their mouths together and Jeff let go, sunk into the feeling of being with Mike. 

\--

They went home with silver and Jeff blamed that for his listless feeling. Things that used to be enough to settle Jeff didn’t seem to be working anymore. The ice at the rink didn’t feel anywhere close to home and the river pulled him harder then ever. He blamed it on missing Mike, all the phone calls and emails didn’t quite make up for the warmth of Mike’s hand on his hip and the memory of Mike from all the way back when they first met promising Jeff a place to belong. Jeff clung to that memory. When he woke up waist deep in the river, when he got in trouble for not paying attention in school again, when he pretended not to see the worried looks from adults and the weird looks from teammates he just remembered that and the warm feeling in Helinski, of being where he was supposed to be. 

\--

Jeff got called-up for the Phantoms’ playoffs. When he stepped out of the airport in Philadelphia and the eastern wind brushed the taste of salt across his lips, something uncurled in Jeff chest. The few weeks with the Phantoms were a blur and Jeff was too overwhelmed to do anything but play and sleep so the feeling rested in his chest warm and right. Jeff hadn’t really cared too much about the Flyers besides being happy to be with Mike, but for the first time he thought he might be happy here, in Philadelphia, with this organization specifically. It made it even better. So going back to Sault Ste. Marie felt even worse than he’d realized it could. He’d tasted the life he’d wanted: a beautiful city on the beach with the promise of Mike next to him. Sault was empty and bereft and Jeff couldn’t stop the empty restless feeling from digging a hole into his chest. He only felt better when he was pressed up next to Mike, but even that was not like it was when they were in Helsinki. Jeff could lose himself in the press of Mike’s lips and salt of his sweat on Jeff’s tongue but he couldn’t settle, couldn’t get that feeling of home back.

So Jeff pushed harder. He dreamed of Helsinki. He dreamed of the sound of water slapping against the concrete walls of the harbor, of the taste of salt on Mike’s skin and for a brief time he didn’t feel so broken. He woke up longing for those couple of weeks in Philadelphia when he thought he had found a home without Mike, his whole body aching for it. If it was late enough he’d call Mike, and just listen to him talk about nothing until the feeling receded and he could breathe again. 

\--

Mike surprised Jeff at the hotel. He hadn’t said anything about coming down to play with the Phantoms but Jeff got back from practice and there he was in the lobby with the GM. He followed Jeff into the hotel room, and when the door closed Mike pressed Jeff against it with a wide smile that disappeared into a kiss. It was the best feeling Jeff had ever had. They had a long break between the series and get a few days to themselves with no teammates or chaperones around. Mike didn’t tell Jeff where they’re going to, just got him in the car and drove out of the city, east to the coast. They walked along the waterfront promenade for a while until the stores and people began to peter out and it was just them and the occasional jogger. They walked down to the beach, kicking off their shoes and wading into the cold water. The waves wrapt around Jeff’s calves like fingers, gently urging him to follow them out into the ocean. Everything else faded for a moment, except the desire to follow that call. 

Mike pulled on his hand, and Jeff looked back surprised to see he’d been walking forward.

“You ok?”

Jeff nodded and tried to walk back towards Mike, each step against the pull of the receding water more difficult until he was back by Mike’s side. 

\--

Jeff put it out of his mind. He wasn’t thinking about those feelings, not now, not when they were winning and Mike was here and he was happy. He was supposed to be home here, he wasn’t supposed to feel that anymore. 

Amidst the partying and drinking after they won the Calder Cup he ends up back at the shore. Jeff had had too much champagne and beer and shots of mystery alcohol and the smoke from the bonfire had turned everything a little hazier and in the whisper of waves breaking he could almost hear the calling. He didn’t remember walking into the water, didn’t remember when the ground dipped away and he had to swim. All he remembered was the rushing sound of the tide pulling out and then solid arms wrapping around him, dragging him back to shore. He lay in the sand staring up at the stars and the smoke and listened to the singing of the waves.

\--

Mike was sopping wet and itchy from the drying sand flaking off his skin when he got them back to their hotel room. Jeff hadn’t said anything since Mike pulled him out of ocean, farther away then Mike had ever seen him. It started a fluttery fear in his chest. He’d always felt so sure that he was winning, that Jeff was slowly becoming more present the longer he was with Mike. But here Jeff felt like he was slipping away faster than Mike could pull back. So he curled up around Jeff’s back as though something as light as the weight of his arm could keep Jeff with him. Jeff still smelt like smoke and the sea and Mike wished he could rub that scent away, make Jeff smell like something less wild, something easy and human.

Mike had thought, when he’d claimed he was the place Jeff belonged, that he was challenging some spirit or dark creature who had caught Jeff somehow. Something with a heart, with wants and desires, something that could be reasoned with, bought, or defeated. That’s the way the story worked. He’d always paid attention to stories, he knew that for all the warning they also promised that you could walk away from the campfire, and follow the snow women, and let the wolf lead you into the dark and if you were brave and strong and smart you could find your way back. The Ocean wasn’t alive, it didn’t reason or compromise, it just was, vast and terrifying and eternal and Mike had never felt so small and helpless.

\--

Jeff was in Riga with Mike a week later. When they were alone in their hotel room at night he crawled into Jeff’s bed and pressed him down into the mattress with his hands and his mouth and Jeff let the familiar scent of his sweat cover the ocean smell that had soaked into the walls of the city. He concentrated on Mike’s hitching breath and soft moans and ignored the siren song of waves just down the street. It mostly worked, until Jeff found himself at the end of a pier, toes curling over the concrete edge and his whole body leaning forward and he knew it was too far and he knew he was going to over balance. But he felt so sure it would be ok, that if he fell he’d finally be where he’d always been going. He leaned a little farther, centimeters away from too far. Fingers curled into the back of his shirt, jerking him back and sending him stumbling into Seabs’ solid chest. “Careful,” Seabs said keeping hold of his shirt and gently tugging him back away from the pier. 

“I wasn’t, I mean I was just looking,” Jeff attempted to explain.

Seabs just walked faster. “You have to be more careful.”

“I’ve been careful.”

Seabs scoffed at that, “You are the most reckless person I’ve ever met. Didn’t your mother teach you how to resist the call.”

“My mother’s dead.” Jeff yanked himself out of Seabs grip. He’d never used that fact as a weapon before, but he did now. Lashed out with it to make Seabs back off.

Seabs stopped and stared at Jeff for a minute like he was trying to work out a puzzle.

“Jeff, what are you?” 

“What are you talking about?” Jeff leaned back distancing himself from the searching look in Seabs’ eyes. He didn't want to know, just wanted to go back to the hotel and crawl into bed with Mike, safe and warm and far away from this. 

“Do you really not know? Oh god, do you think you’re human?” Seabs asked, vaguely horrified. 

“I am human.” But even as he said it he knew it was wrong. If he was honest he had known there was something wrong with him, something off and unusual, for a long time. He just didn’t want to acknowledge it, didn’t want to deal with it, so he pretended not to notice, avoided looking too hard at things and never asked Seabs what he meant the hundreds of chance he’d had. Jeff had seen pity on enough people’s faces growing up that he had no trouble recognizing it when it crossed Seabs’ face. 

“Oh, Jeff.”

“I am.” he insisted hollowly 

“Jeff, what happened to your mom?”

“I told you, she died.”

“Ok, but how?”

“She drowned.”

“Like you almost did?”

“I just wanted--”

“To go home?”

Just like that the weird off feeling that had been following Jeff his whole life, that had been pulling him out of beds in the middle of the night and driving him down rivers had a name. “Yeah.”

“Me too. We can’t though. You understand that, right? There is no home for things like us.”

Jeff’s eyes drifted back to the end of the pier.

Seabs moved to stand in Jeff’s way. “The only thing the sea gives is death.” 

“But we’d be home.” Jeff repeated testing the phrase. It felt right, felt like the answer he’d never had the question to ask for. 

Seabs took a long time to answer, long enough that Jeff wasn’t sure he was going to. They stood in the middle of the pier, the water gone still under them, caught between the changing tide. 

“It’s not worth it.” Seabs finally said, eyes down and shoulders pulled inward. He wasn’t really talking Jeff anymore, the words were too quiet and all of Seabs attention was turned in. 

\--

The hotel room was too warm when Jeff gets back, the heater running despite the fact that Mike was missing. Jeff turned it off and stripped off his clothes. He turned the shower on, as cold as it would go and stepped in. He didn’t feel anything. He’d seen how most guys reacted to cold showers, the hurried, chattering, dance steps they did to get in and out as fast as possible. Jeff just stood under the icy spray and waited to feel cold. The temperature in the room dropped around him, colder and colder as the weather outside leeched in through the walls. Jeff didn’t feel it. 

Mike found him like that. 

“You’re here,” Mike said with a relieved sigh. “Come out, let’s get you warmed up.”

“I’m not cold,” Jeff answered.

“That water is freezing, come on, let me warm you up.”

“I said, I’m not cold.”

“Jeff,” Mike started, reaching under the spray to grab Jeff’s arm and Jeff pulled away.

“Go away” Jeff shouted, shoving Mike out of the bathroom and locking the door behind him. He slid to the damp tile floor. The water splashed against the floor and bounced out of shower onto Jeff, each drop an icy reminder that Jeff did not belong.

\--

Mike was sitting on the bed when Jeff finally ventured out. It was long after the team dinner was supposed to start. Jeff had figured it would be safe, surely Mike would have left to get food with the rest of the group. Clearly he had figured wrong.

“What are doing you doing here?” Jeff asked.

“Well it is my room too, you know,” Mike answered.

“But, shouldn’t you be at dinner?”

“I was waiting for you. Don’t worry, I told everyone you weren’t feeling well. They’re going to bring us back something.” Mike shifted over so there was room next to him. “I bet we can find something in English,” he said picking up the remote.

“Why?”

“Because there’s always some crazy 80s action movie on TV that you haven’t seen since third grade in these countries.”

“No, why are you here?”

Mike just shrugged, “I’ll always wait for you.”

“You shouldn’t,” Jeff said leaning back towards the chill coming out of the bathroom. He couldn’t keep this up with Mike, not when he didn’t belong here. He’d been so lucky this far, always someone there to pull him out but one day they wouldn’t be there. One day he’d wouldn’t be able to resist the pull. One day he might not want to. “I’m not--I’m different.” 

“I know,” Mike said easily. 

“No,” Jeff bit out, frustrated, “ I mean I’m not--I’m not human.” It was thick and hard to say and twisted his tongue all wrong but it still felt right.

“I know,” Mike said again, just as easy.

“You know?” Jeff hadn’t even known, not really, until this afternoon, and Mike was just shrugging over this like it was old news.

“I mean, I wasn’t sure, but I knew there was something--” Mike paused there like he was trying to find the best word, “not natural about you,” he ended up with.

Jeff dropped down on the mattress next to Mike. “I didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry?” Mike offered and slid the back of his hand against Jeff’s knuckles.

It wasn’t until after everyone came back with food, and the assistant coaches had come round for room checks and the lights were off and Mike was a soft body beside him that Jeff finally managed to ask the question that had been spinning in his mind all night. 

“If you knew, why are here?”

“What do you mean?” Mike mumbled back, already half asleep. 

“Why did you want to room with me again? Why are you still with me at all?”

“Because you belong with me.” Mike answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“How can you be sure?”

Mike blinked open his eyes. “I am. I don’t care what I have to do, I won’t let anything take you away.”

Part of Jeff wanted to argue more, to keep saying “but what if,” until he finally reached the point where Mike said, “well then I’d let the sea take you.” He nodded instead and Mike shifted closer, wrapping an arm over Jeff’s waist.

“I’ll keep you safe, I promise.” 

\--

Jeff avoided things most of the summer. He knew he had to talk to someone. He couldn’t avoid knowing what he was any longer, but he still couldn’t quite bring himself to ask his father. Instead he spent most of his time with Christy and slowly, haltingly they started talking about the untethered feeling they’d never needed to vocalize before. It had always been understood between them and that had been enough. But Jeff suddenly had words, had answers to questions they didn’t know to ask, and he needed to tell her. They were too big to curl around each other in Christy’s bed the way they used to when they were children but they tried anyways. 

“I’m leaving,” Christy whispered. “Once you leave, I’m going too.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet, East.” Christy bit her lip, and the next words were even quieter, “Maybe Massachusetts.” Jeff breathe caught. He’d never been brave enough even at his most desperate moments to imagine that. Massachusetts was this black spot on the geography of their life, the last place their mother existed. 

\--

He tried to bring up the subject of his mother a few time over the summer, but it was hard. The topic of their mother had been taboo for so long. Every conversation he or Christy ever attempted to have when they were younger was quietly shut down until they stopped talking about it all together. Jeff didn’t know how to start again, so he put it off until it was almost time for him to leave for Philadelphia. It wasn’t his dad he ended up talking to either. 

He came home late. There wasn’t a river to follow but the pull east still drew him to wander along the winding pipelines and small streams. Eventually all the water drained to ocean. It was not exactly true and too often the streams would sputter out in fields or ponds but that idea, the wild hope that this stream would lead him home was enough to keep Jeff wandering long after the sun sat. 

His grandmother was sitting on the porch, a cigarette burning slow between fingers. She wasn’t smoking it, just watching it burn, the smoke curling up from the red cherry tip. Jeff stopped at the foot of the porch-- he couldn’t remember ever seeing her smoke before. 

“Don’t go.” She said, looking up at him.

“I have to,” Jeff answered. Partially he was talking about the NHL and being first pick, the kind of thing you don’t just walk away from, but he was also talking about leaving London, about the fact that he couldn’t stay here and live half a life any longer, not when he knew better. 

“You’ll die, you know that right? The only thing the sea brings to things like you is death.”

“You knew?”

“Not at first, not until after she left. If I had known…” She trailed off and shook her head and turned back to Jeff. “Everyone from the islands knows what happens to a selkie’s children. I thought... I thought if i just kept you two far enough away I could stop it.”

Of all the things Jeff knew about himself now, he hadn’t quite figured out what he was, what his mother had been. He thought knowing would mean something, but now that he did he found it really didn’t. It didn’t really matter that his mother was very likely not dead, she was still gone. It didn’t really matter what she had been, Jeff was still too human to go with her and not human enough not to try to follow. “I don’t think it works like that, grandma.”

“I guess not.” She took a slow drag from the cigarette, and Jeff watched the tip glow, the red lights running around the curve of the tobacco, turning black then grey. 

“What happened to my mom?”

His grandmother took another long drag of the cigarette before she answered, “It’s like your father said, she went home. He never should have brought her here anyways, it was cruel to bring her so far from the shore. I suppose it was cruel of us to keep you here too.”

It was. Jeff was only barely understanding how lost he’d been, how cut off and screwed up being so far from where he belonged had made him. 

“You were just trying to protect us.” 

“Does it matter if I still failed?”

\--

Jeff ended up leaving for prospects camp without ever talking to his father and Jeff should have been worried about that, but Mike was there with a wide smile talking about how they were going to tear up the league this year and getting an apartment together. It was so easy to let things slide, to get swept up in Mike’s excitement. It was not that Jeff forgot exactly it was just that he didn’t have time to think about it when Mike always had something new for them to try. Weeks went by and Jeff hadn’t been to the beach yet. He would like to say he didn’t even notice it was that long, but that would be a lie, it was always there, a soft pull that always had him leaning to the east. Everytime he mentioned it, Mike had something else they needed to do or see and he wasn’t exactly subtle but Jeff was a little bit afraid of what he’d do when he stepped into the ocean again, so he didn’t fight it. He let Mike guide him deeper into the paved-over roads and high brick walls of the Old City. 

It was just a stalling tactic though, and Jeff knew he wouldn’t be able to stay forever entrenched and safe in the city that always seemed to be facing away from the beach. It wasn’t so bad when they finally went. He could still feel the tug in his chest, urging him to just swim out with the tide past the barrier islands and into the gulf stream, but Mike was next to him, solid and warm and always that rock Jeff could cling to. The salt of his skin had nothing on the sea but Jeff still chased its taste across Mike’s collar when they got back to their apartment, nestled far enough away from the river that Jeff almost never found himself waking up to the feel of Mike’s arms wrapped around his chest, whispering “stay here, stay with me.”

They played Boston in October, a fact that Jeff had studiously avoided thinking about. Boston was not Massachusetts and as long as Jeff kept telling himself that he might believe it before they went. 

All the denial in the world did not change that Boston was absolutely in Massachusetts. It was not that bad though. Jeff stepped off the plane and it was sunny, a little warm for fall, and the world didn’t end. Boston had that city smell Jeff was getting well acquainted with: trash and chewing gum, sweat and car exhaust all mixed up together. It was just a city, just a place like all the other places Jeff had been. 

Christy came to see him. She looked brighter then he remembered, skin turned a warm pink in the sun. He didn’t remember her smiling so much. 

“Why didn’t you ever say it was this good to be home?” she asked with a laugh as she led him on to her boat, a small sailboat with a single tiny cabin Jeff barely fit in and Queen of Hearts written in blue on the side.

“Aren’t you scared?” He asked, “don’t you worry one day you won’t be able to stop yourself?”

“I was,” she said, running her hand over the gunwale, “but I met someone.”

For a second Jeff had this wild hope that meeting somebody could actually be enough, that Mike could be enough to never worry again.

“There’s this woman, up in Marblehead, she knew what I was and she fixed me. I don’t know exactly how, but I don’t feel the pull anymore, at least not the same. You should come see her too, before it’s too late.” Christy went on. 

Jeff nodded, biting back the disappointment. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. Mike was not the answer, no matter what he said. Jeff had always known that.

Jeff went during a long break, Mike insisted on driving. The woman’s house was a simple wood colonial style house like all the others that perched on the winding hill above the cove. She served dark black tea in delicate China cups while they sat around the table in her yellow kitchen.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she said gently.

“What, why not?” Mike asked, but she ignored him, keeping her focus on Jeff.

“Life is hard for half-things like you, isn’t it? The wild is in you but you can’t follow it’s call. So many of you come walking through my door. Your sister was easy, her heart only wanted to go home, so I gave it a place both in the water and above it. You though, you let someone steal your heart away. It wants too much now. There is nothing I can do for you.”

“There has to be something you can do,” Mike interjected.

The woman didn’t take her eyes off Jeff when she answered. “I could take your heart back for you, if you wanted. We could talk then.”

Jeff felt the temperature dropping as she spoke and the skin on his arm tightened and the hairs stood on end. 

“What would happen to Mike?” Jeff asked and the words felt like ice passing his tongue.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s trying to tame you, like so many men have tried to reign in the wild. He took your heart and didn’t even give you his back.”

Mike didn’t protest. 

Jeff shoved down the betrayed hurt and shook his head. He was not a wild thing. He did not want to be one. 

\--

The car ride back towards Philadelphia was quiet, the radio crackled as stations come in and out of range and neither of them adjusted the dial.

“I was 10,” Mike said suddenly as they road down the New Jersey Turnpike. “I didn’t, I didn’t know what I was doing really, and I couldn’t imagine loving anything as much my home. I didn’t think it would ever matter. I didn’t even remember until she said something.”

Jeff nodded. It’s not that he didn’t understand. Even if it had been a secret girlfriend, or his dog, or hockey, Jeff would have understood. Mike didn’t owe him anything. “Okay.”

“I love you,” Mike said to the u-haul in front of them. 

Jeff didn’t say anything back but he slid his hand across the center console and over Mike’s hand. Mike hesitantly turned his hand over so they could thread their fingers together and Jeff held tight.

The route took them down the shore and the late evening sun sent up orange sparks where it hit the water. They danced across the tops of the surf, running along the surface keeping pace with the car. Jeff wanted so desperately for this to be enough, Mike’s hand in his and the water in front of him. It could be, he thought, as long of Mike didn’t let go, as long as everything stayed just like this, in this perfect balance. 

\--

 

Mike woke up shivering. The door was open and had been for long enough that the temperature of the house had fallen to match the winter night outside. Jeff was nowhere in the apartment, not that Mike really thought he would be. When Jeff wandered out in the middle of the night there was only one place he went. Mike threw on a heavy coat and closed the door behind them. Hopefully the house would warm up again while he was gone. 

Mike ran down to the river. It was almost ten miles away from their apartment, a location they’d chosen on purpose. It gave him lots of time to catch up to Jeff before he reached the water. Mike must have been really tired because Jeff was already standing on the frozen river when Mike finally reached him. Mike carefully slid down the bank to the very edge of the ice. It was still clear, dark even under the glow of the city’s street lights, but Jeff was out there, his bare feet sliding under the little hills of snow. The ice might have been supporting Jeff right now but Mike wasn’t stupid enough to try it himself. He tried to call out instead and on the third time Mike yelled his name he saw Jeff blink and turn towards him. The ice splintered out from where his feet touched it and in a second Jeff was gone.

Mike was absolutely stupid enough to run out after him.

The ice crumbled away under Mike’s weight and the water was shockingly cold. He wasn’t half way to the place Jeff went under before his toes were tingling and the sharp little bites of pain were moving up his leg with every step farther out he went. 

Jeff wasn’t coming up and he wasn’t coming up and Mike knew Jeff could stay under for an absurdly long amount of time. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to drag Jeff back to the surface but it was the first time he wasn’t sure if he could. He should have insisted that Jeff took his heart back. It didn’t matter what it would do to him, his heart was safe in the mud of The Lake On The Wood. It would be safe long after Mike died. Jeff’s should be safe too. Mike was wrong. Mike was so wrong, Jeff would never belong with him. Jeff belonged to the water and water would have him one way or another. Mike just wanted it to be the way that kept Jeff alive. 

Mike was lucky, lucky that the street lights were bright and that the moon was nearly full and that Flyer’s orange was so hideously bright because he found Jeff quickly. He could barely feel his limbs by the time he got Jeff back on shore. Jeff blinked up at him, oblivious to cold as always. 

“I’m going to fix this, I promise.” Mike pressed the words to Jeff’s forehead.

\--

The woman in Marblehead served him tea in the same china cup as last time. She spent a long time just sitting at the table watching him drink in silence. 

“So you can give Jeff his heart back, right?” Mike asked when he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I can,” she agreed.

“And then you give him a boat or something so he can be in the sea and above it or whatever and he’ll be safe then, right?”

“I would be able to work something out for him if he wanted, yes.”

“So do it. I want to give his heart back. I want him to be safe.”

She scoffed, “Don’t be silly you can’t just give other people’s hearts away. It’s not your heart. If he doesn’t want it back there isn’t anything either of us can do about it.”

“But I have to do something. He’ll die. I can’t--I promised I’d keep him safe.”

The woman pours Mike another cup of tea. “There are other ways to help. Not as effective as it would be if he’d let me help him, but helpful none the less.”

“What? What can I do? I’ll do anything.”

“You would, wouldn’t you? Well you could always give him your heart, tie yourself to him as he is tied to you.”  
“I don’t have it anymore.” Mike confessed. 

“I know, but you know where it is don’t you?” She smiled at him over her cup and Mike felt like shivering even though it was still warm in the kitchen. “I bet you know how to get it back.”

\--

The Lake was not quite frozen yet, cold enough that a thin film of ice circled the shore but the Lake itself was still an inky dark liquid. It was certainly cold enough that Mike’s toes almost instantly went numb when he stepped in. He walked out to about where he’d left the little heart shaped copper wire when he was ten. The icy water bit cruelly into his thighs. 

“I know I’m not supposed to do this,” he started, “but I gave you my heart the year spring wouldn’t come, and I need it back. There’s somebody who I have to give it to.”

Mike could barely feel anything in the cold that seeped into his body but there was the faint sensation of something hard under his foot. He reached down to pull it up and found it was the heart, smaller than he remembered and a little dirty, but unmistakably his, he could feel it.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

\--

The rain didn’t let up the whole way back to Philadelphia. It pounded down on the car, running down the windows like rivers and crystallizing into webs of ice. The defroster roared under the window, turning the ice to water and the wipers thumped back and forth as fast as possible just to clear the window for a few seconds. Mike drove slowly, and carefully kept his hazards on.

Jeff was standing in the rain when Mike pulled up. He was underdressed for the weather like always and he felt extra cold against Mike’s overheated skin when he wrapped himself around Mike, soaking them both in the freezing water. 

Mike leaned into it, Jeff was worth it. Jeff was worth a life of dark clouds on the horizon and never going home again. Jeff was worth everything. 

“Let’s go inside.”

Jeff nodded and slowly pulled back, but didn’t move towards the door until Mike went. The house was just as cold and Jeff probably hadn’t turned on the heater in the whole week Mike had been gone. Mike turned it on now, stripped them out of their wet clothes and pushed Jeff into their bed. He slid in next to him and pulled the covers up and over them, making a warm little cave around them, keeping the world away for the moment. 

“I went to get my heart back.”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t fair that I had your heart and you didn’t have mine.”

“I don’t need it, I just need you here.”

“I know but I want you to have it. Now we can both be cursed,” Mike said opening his hand and holding out the copper heart.

Jeff stared at it for a moment, before carefully reaching out and taking it. It looked even smaller in his hand then it had in Mike’s. He closed his fist around it and curled his hand into his chest. 

“Thank you.”

It stopped raining sometime in the middle of the night and when Mike woke up Jeff was already gone.

\--

The wind whipped off the ocean, nothing between the shores of Portugal and Jersey to slow it down. It built and built, dragging the water along with it into frothing white waves that snapped at Jeff’s toes where they dug into the sand. 

“I’m not coming.”

The water rushed out so far back Jeff could see the first of the dips in the bottom and then came rushing back in, flooding over Jeff’s feet, soaking the bottom of his jeans, and dragging the sand under Jeff’s toes out into the surf. 

“You don’t get to have me.”

The next waves came in just has hard, and Jeff sunk a little further into the hole being hollowed out below him. He took a deep breathe and his lungs filled with salt and his skin was soaked with spray and out there somewhere was his mother and a thousand more like her. Everyone from the islands knew what happened to selkie children, the sea took back what was stolen, always. 

“I belong to Mike.”

The next waves were shallow, barely brushing across his heels before fading back.

“I belong to Mike,” Jeff repeated like they were the magic words that would free him and the next waves slid against his toes. He wasn’t expect the force of the next swell. It ran up the slope of the beach and rushed back down hard, eroding the ground under him. Before Jeff knew what was happening he'd lost his footing. The water pulled him down and the next wave came in quick, rushing up over him and crashing against his chest, ripping at the chain around his neck that he’d hung Mike’s copper heart on. 

The water pulled on his hands and tried to drag him out, and Jeff almost went with it. It would be so easy to let everything go, let the waves carry him away, let them slip Mike’s necklace over his head--the last weight of the world finally sliding away as the ocean carries him home. 

Except. 

Except, he would have to leave Mike. He would be taking Mike’s heart, and dragging it down into a place it was never meant to be. He couldn’t do that. 

Jeff wasn’t sure exactly what it cost Mike to get his heart back but he was willing to risk everything for Jeff and Jeff couldn’t throw that sacrifice away like this. He couldn’t spit on that gesture and let the water take him. Jeff planted his hands, dug them into the sand and waited out the rushing water. 

Between one wave and the next he got up and walked away. 

\-- 

2012

The sky was still grey it was so early and in the quiet before the sound of traffic overwhelmed it Jeff could hear the distant crash of waves, a soft whisper against the sand. Mike’s heart sat warm on his chest, and small as it was Jeff still felt its weight. The fog floating off the water trickled in through the window screen, it rolled off the ocean thick with salt soaking into Jeff’s skin, wrapping around him like a blanket, like a promise of the kind of peace he had never known. Jeff pressed his face into the curve of Mike’s shoulder and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of dark earth and clean clear water and Mike. One more day, he thought as he did every morning, please give me one more day. The waves kept up their whisper and the fog didn’t dissipate but Mike shifted, still mostly asleep, and wrapped an arm over Jeff’s waist. Jeff kept breathing him in and the next time he woke up it was to the sound of traffic.

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS (though if you've reached this point I assume you know that or have finished reading the story)
> 
> the discussion of suicide: so it is assumed throughout most the story that Jeff's mom committed suicide and he talks about that at several points though it is later revealed she did not (if that makes a difference to you). In addition Jeff is being magically/mystically induced to drown himself. He doesn't actually want to die at any point but he is being driven to it and sometimes questions how much he wants to resist.
> 
> near death experiences: Jeff has a lot of near drownings in this. He is always ok, but if you're not sure how you will handle descriptions of drowning you might want to avoid this or get someone you trust to read it first.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Hiraeth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136563) by [asmallbluedot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asmallbluedot/pseuds/asmallbluedot)




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